It is popular to print a trade name, an identity mark and/or exposure data in a margin of a print. For printing letters indicating a trade name etc. and/or a mark, a letter printing head is incorporated in an exposure framing mask for defining an exposure aperture of the photographic printer for a photographic paper. The photographic printer is actuated to simultaneously print a letter image and an image of a picture frame on the photographic paper.
Meanwhile, many 35 mm format still picture cameras are provided with a patron receiving chamber and a film take-up chamber on the right and left hand sides of the camera lens, respectively, as viewed from the front of the camera. However, in recent years, it has become increasingly more popular to configure the 35 mm format still picture cameras to have a film take-up and a patron receiving chamber disposed on the right and left hand sides of the camera lens, respectively. Images on a film provided by cameras with a patron receiving chamber loaded on the left hand side of the camera lens are inverted or upside down with respect to images on a film provided by the cameras having a patron receiving chamber located on the right hand side.
In many large scaled photofinishing laboratories, a large number of negative films include inverted or upside down images and erected (upside up) images which are connected in series in the form of a long web of roll film for a bulk processing in developing and printing. For such a long web of roll film, a printed trade name or a mark will appear in a wrong posture or upside down on a print of a picture frame with an inverted image. Specifically, as is shown in FIG. 1, an letter image appears upside down with respect to a picture 3 in a margin of a print made from a picture frame which is taken by the latter type of a camera (i.e., a camera having a patron chamber located on the right side). A print having a letter image 2 which is opposite in posture to the printed picture 3 is unfavorable.